All About Writing workshop with Jo-Anne Richards & Fred de Vries (R120)
10 AM – 12:30 PM (Library)
A good story-teller can make us care about real-world issues, or about imagined people. Novelist Jo-Anne Richards and non-fiction writer Fred de Vries discuss how to get a story going, maintain the momentum and come to a dramatic climax and a satisfying resolution.

Fiction editing in South Africa
4 PM – 5 PM (Church Hall)
On a more serious note, John Linnegar of the Professional Editors’ Group talks to editor Maire Fisher, author/critic Brent Meersman (Reports Before Daybreak) and publishers Fourie Botha (Umuzi) and Colleen Higgs (Modjaji) about the local state of the art.

Ambassadors
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM (School Hall)
Our country’s representatives come from both sides of the political divide. Broadcaster Mike Wills talks diplomacy with Melanie Verwoerd, former ambassador to Ireland (The Verwoerd who Toyi-Toyied) and Tony Leon who took on Argentina (The Accidental Ambassador).

A sense of place
4 PM – 5 PM (Church Hall)
Christopher Hope engages with three authors whose recent novels have a strong sense of place: Ken Barris on growing up in PE, Alistair Morgan who sets The Land Within on a former family farm in the Karoo, and Ron Irwin who writes about an obsession with rowing in an American boys’ school.

Vrede
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM (Hospice Hall)
Jo-Anne Richards and Fred de Vries bought a weekend retreat which transformed gradually from utopia to dystopia. It became a strong thread through both their recent works – one fiction, the other non-fiction. Here they tease out their different treatments of a dorp which encapsulates many of South Africa’s issues.